Benjamin Franklin

What is Investing?

After he died, Benjamin Franklin left $5,000 to the city of Boston.  His will stated that interest from this fund be allowed to collect for 300 years.  By 1891, the $5,000 had grown to $92,000, and the balance was rolled over and invested for a second century.The Boston Trust Fund of Benjamin Franklin, in the 1950s, grew to $1.5 million!  The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has reaffirmed that the fund should continue until 1991.  In 1990, his gift had grown to over $2 million.  The Pennsylvania legislature used a portion of this $2 million to create Ben Franklin Funds at community foundations throughout the Commonwealth.True enough, Benjamin Franklin understood the value of investment, as he wrote: “Money begets money; its children begets more.”

Sometimes, when people have extra cash in their pockets like sales bonuses or fast cash loans, they have no clue what to do with it.  Most of the time, they end of spending the hard earned money on things they do not really need.  One of the more productive ways to spend money is to invest it.Sad to say, most people are scared of doing investments.  They reason that they know little about investing or get confused with stock exchange numbers and rate charts.  Strip away the intimidating jargon, investing is simple and easy enough to understand even by ordinary people.

For starters, an investment is something people can buy or acquire which has the potential of bringing back more money than the amount they spent purchasing it.  Investment takes many forms: certificate of ownership in a company, a piece of property, a valuable art work, even a debt a friend owes.  All these can generate more money which is called a return on investment or ROI.  What people should learn is how to look for and choose the best kind of investments that would give them, based on the initial resources, the biggest possible ROI.  For instance, if a person takes out a cash loan of $1000, what is the best investment that amount of money could get?  A good, well planned investment would do wonders with this kind of money.

Even during economic slowdown, investments are still good financial options.  Investment companies help a lot in building a good investment portfolio, but nothing beats the advice of people who invest and who have made money from their investments. However, like in all things, people should be cautious so as not to get burned and make disastrous mistakes.

Benjamin Franklin part 1